1. Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a method of controlling drawing processing to generate image data for print output, and more specifically to an image forming apparatus, a method of controlling drawing processing to be performed by a drawing processor selected from a plurality of types of drawing processors to generate image data for print output, and a recording medium storing a drawing processing control program.
2. Background
The image forming apparatus such as a printer processes print data into image data for print output according to drawing commands of the print data, and forms an image based on the image data on a recording sheet. This processing, which may be referred to as drawing processing or rendering processing, is performed by a drawing processor according to the drawing commands, which may be written in a page description language (PDL). In order to improve efficiency in drawing processing, the recent image forming apparatus may be provided with a hardware drawing processor implemented by a specialized electronic circuit, in addition to a software drawing processor implemented by a central processing unit (CPU). In such case, drawing processing may be shared between the hardware drawing processor and the software drawing processor in a manner such that overall efficiency in drawing processing is improved.